6.5m Brits watch the tributes, tunes and tears at Michael Jackson memorial service

Captive audience: Audience watches the Michael Jackson memorial live on a big screen in downtown LA

A global audience of up to a billion people tuned in last night as Michael Jackson was given a true Tinseltown send-off at a celebrity-packed memorial service.

BBC2 cleared its schedule for nearly three hours to show the event, which saw the golden casket containing the singer's body take centre stage at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, in front of an 18,000-strong congregation.

The Corporation also showed the funeral service, which featured tearful tributes from Brooke Shields and Smokey Robinson, and performances from Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie, Jermaine Jackson and Britain's own Shaheen Jafargholi on its rolling News Channel.

Five also covered the ceremony for two-and-a-half hours, along with the Sky Arts channel.

In total, more than 6.5m people in Britain watched Jacko's final farewell, from the moment the family arrived at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, along the cavalcade of limos to the Staples Center and through the service to the casket's emotional removal by his grieving brothers.

Final performance: The Jackson brothers gather backstage at the Staples Center

The world's final taste of the Michael Jackson phenomenon was a singing, dancing, schmaltzy spectacle that eclipsed anything even this city of make-believe has ever witnessed.

And one that underlined how overwhelming the culture of celebrity has become.

Nearly two weeks after he died, Jackson still had the power to bring everything to a standstill. He also had the capacity to shock.

Front row Jacksons: (from left to right) Rebbie, Janet, Randy, Tito, Marlon, Jackie and Jermaine at the public memorial

Giant screens outside the Staples Centre broadcast his image ceaselessly to the masses. Police officers joined queues to buy tacky merchandise at inflated prices. One vendor said she expected to make $5,000 from the occasion.

A man in shorts and a flamboyant shirt haggled to tout his two tickets for $2,700, ignoring pleas from organisers not to do so.

Procession: The funeral procession for Michael Jackson heads to the Staples Center after a memorial service for friends and family at Forest Lawn Mortuary

Everything about the day was pure showbiz...right down to the end of the service when Jackson's children came on stage.

His 11-year- old daughter Paris broke down in tears as she told a
worldwide TV audience of a billion that her 'daddy' was 'the best
father you could imagine'. She added: 'I just wanted to say I love him
so much.'

As his brother Jermaine so perfectly summarised it: 'Everything Michael did was so over the top.' Quite so.

The Jacko extravaganza had swung into action long before the mist had cleared over Hollywood.

His body was driven to the Forest Lawn cemetery and the Jackson clan is believed to have said a personal farewell inside the imposing chapel before returning to the family home briefly.

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This being America, however, helicopter-borne TV cameras zoomed in on all their tearful hugs and kisses - then tracked the motorcade every inch of the way as if it were an OJ Simpson car chase.

Live commentary was broadcast throughout the 30-minute journey. Away from all the attention, 11 elephants due to take part in an unconnected performance at the stadium tomorrow had been quietly led to their quarters.

The event was being billed as a circus spectacular. It never had a hope of competing with the real thing.

The Jackson clan is believed to have said a personal farewell inside the imposing chapel at Forest Lawn mortuary before returning to the family home briefly.

Single-gloved pallbearers carried the mirror gold casket to a space reserved between cascading flowers, just a few feet from seated guests, accompanied by a hallelujah choir singing 'We're going to see the king...'

Among those who saluted Jackson were his friend Brooke Shields, music mogul Barry Gordy, the Rev. Al Sharpton and basketball greats Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant.

'This is a moment that I wished I didn't live to see,' Stevie Wonder said before his performance.

The singer Smokey Robinson began the service by reading statements from Jackson's close friends Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela.

British idol: Britain's Got Talent finalist Shaheen Jafargholi was given a standing ovation for his stunning performance

In Moscow, President Obama had told a TV reporter that he recalled listening to Jackson from the age of eight.

He said: 'I think we saw it when Elvis died; in a different way you saw it when Frank Sinatra died; you saw it when John Lennon died. There are certain figures in our popular culture that just capture our people's imaginations and in death they become even larger.'

And so the curtain came down on Michael Jackson, who can finally be laid to rest, maybe at Forest Lawn, maybe at Neverland and maybe, according to reports, in concrete to deter grave robbers.

• It has been revealed a Michael Jackson memorial will also be
held in London on August 29, on what would have been the singer's
51st birthday. Kenney Ortega, director of Jackson's planned This
Is It UK concert, has met family members and other organisers
about the event.

Roger Friedman, the Hollywood Reporter
journalist who has broken many of the stories surrounding
Jackson's death, said the concert will take place at
the O2 Arena where the This Is It tour had been due to start on Monday.

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Michael Jackson memorial: The tackiest show on earth to send off the King of Pop